Over at Forbes I have a post up on Detroit schools Emergency Manager, Robert Bobb, and his announcement that he will be issuing layoff notices to all 5,466 public school school teachers there. What’s really interesting is that Bobb is a graduate of the Broad Foundation’s Superintendent Academy – a program that shapes new corporate reformers to go out and bring school choice and privatization to the masses.
Even more interesting, to me at least, is how the school reform movement is so closely tied to the recent power grabs in Wisconsin and Michigan and elsewhere. For instance, the Detroit Public Schools were challenging Bobb’s authority in the courts. He was appointed by Rick Snyder’s Democratic predecessor, and from the beginning people have been unhappy with his top-down approach to fixing the Detroit school system – which is admittedly in rough shape. He was constantly hampered by pesky lawsuits. Then Snyder passed Public Act 4 which gave Emergency Managers (and the governor’s office) sweeping new powers over financial emergencies, and gave Bobb the powers he’d almost had revoked in the courts.
So the law basically quashed the ongoing attempts to stop Bobb from doing what he’s doing – which is closing schools, firing teachers, unilaterally changing union contracts, and starting up a bunch of new charter schools. All of which is great for his pals over at the Broad Foundation which, incidentally, is paying a hefty chunk of Bobb’s salary.
All of this is very much connected. People focus a lot on the Koch brothers, but the Broad and Gates Foundations are in many ways just as or more responsible for this craziness. If you have any information on this, or pieces of the puzzle I may be missing, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email.
Culture of Truth
Robert Bobb
“Can I call you Bob?”
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Now im really confused. I thought you supported marketbased solutions.
And Cole bitching about the brits wanting to send advisors when the US and Egypt already have advisors on the ground in Libya.
Perhaps the Wingularity is already here and it is deforming reality as well as warping the fabric of spacetime.
;)
Dennis SGMM
This is the place I hang out at. Today I read about the hijacking of Benton Harbor and now this. Is there no level of exaction that will provoke my fellow citizens to simply start knocking these people down every time that they show their faces?
Culture of Truth
Seriously, though, that’s very interesting stuff.
Downthread in discussion there was hope the courts would step with regard to Benton Harbor, but here the legislature appears to have itself stepped in, which may very well be within its power to do.
Dennis SGMM
@Culture of Truth:
What do you call an asshole who’s been welded inside a 55 gallon drum and dumped into the Middle of Lake Michigan?
EconWatcher
ED, have to say, I didn’t find this or the Forbes post very helpful. Your insinuation seems to be that this Robert Bobb is a bad guy, corrupt, ill-intentioned, or some such thing. And for all I know, he’s the devil incarnate–but you didn’t really explain why.
What would you do if you were put in charge of reforming Detroit public schools? What does this guy want to do? Why does he want to do it? That seems important to spell out, no? A brief mention of “charter schools” doesn’t give us much to go on.
While fairness to teachers is important, it’s not the first priority of the educational system; the first priority is trying to provide some glimmer of chance to kids. Hard to imagine a place where they have less chance than in Detroit.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I keep telling you, you should actually read my stuff.
freelancer
=”#comment-2540973″>Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Because you don’t adapt when other people have a change of heart or mind. SATSQ. Dipshit.
WyldPirate
@Dennis SGMM:
No, not until the intertubes and other sorts of digital diversions go dark.
/SATSQ
E.D. Kain
@EconWatcher: my main concern is the process. I don’t know or care if Bobb is good or bad. He shouldn’t be able to unilaterally end collective bargaining or tear up contracts. I think a more democratic approach would be more helpful, but I’m in no position to comment in the best way to save Detroit.
Corner Stone
@Dennis SGMM: A really slow fucking start?
Or, uh, SpongeBob?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: dude i do.
I even read the LoOG lately.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@freelancer: umm where did EDK have that heart change again?
could you give me the link?
I think he just did a global replace on freemarket with market-based.
Its the same thing.
;)
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
So Benton Harbor was just collateral damage in the ongoing crusade to
explain to the blacks what they’re doing wrongreeducate the negroes to be more like whites, only with less money?Dennis SGMM
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Why don’t you consider fucking off and starting your own blog?
Your tendentious posts regarding Kain, Islam and the free market have put you into the scroll past category for almost everyone here. Go ahead, kid, and start your own blog. Then you can show us what you can really do. I can guarantee you almost four hits per year.
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: okay so you linked to someone that isn’t me at the League. What’s your point?
pragmatism
all of those muslins in michigan are getting free education ZOMG its teh sharia slippery slope with the caliphate established in dearborn. or maybe lincon park. only the free market can save us now. university of phoenix/bridgepoint/ashford for all.
someguy
Well, congratulations. That linkage of Bobb to the Koch brothers proving… um… something… made me stupider, which I didn’t think was possible. Libertarianism, FTW!
Observer
In every crime of bad governance, there’s always a Dem elected official lurking somewhere who moved the football down the field 5 or 10 yards before handing off to a Repub who crosses the goalline.
Tsulagi
@Dennis SGMM: Bobbing Spam?
BGinCHI
@Dennis SGMM: The guy who spilled hot coffee on Mayor Emanuel?
Bob Loblaw
How about we just cut to the chase and abolish public education as a right for minority Americans? Why continue to hide it?
Racists get their wish, test score fetishists get their wish, everybody wins. Except for the black and latino kids, but fuck them, they don’t count.
The Bobs
Who the hell names their kid Bob Bobb?
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: until you actually read what I’ve written and respond honestly I don’t know what I can say to you.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Dennis SGMM: its more fun to troll you guys.
;)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: i did. but all i got was crickets.
birthmarker
For-profit schools are the big, big plum. More corporatism. Has nothing to do with school choice, school quality, reforming, etc. Has everything to do with money.
Also breaks up a traditional dem-leaning voting block, which is just icing on the cake.
BGinCHI
E.D., this kind of approach, though slightly less Koch-inspired/financed, is going on in cities around the country (Chicago, DC, etc).
The idea is to reform the education system by coming down hard on the only people the system can control: teachers. You don’t see them blaming administration, or parents, or the students themselves. And by the latter I mean the culture that places learning as a very low priority.
And most importantly, what you don’t see is an admission that resources were already low in these systems. Bleeding money meant having a poor, compromised system a while back, and now to come in and blame the folks who are (mostly) keeping it going is not going to solve the problem. You can hire a whole new slate of excellent teachers, but they are going to get pounded down by having to face an unworkable situation.
We need to have accountability, yes, but until we seriously invest in education like we do in our military (instead of), we aren’t going to get anywhere.
BGinCHI
@birthmarker: Agree completely. It’s politics and culture war posing as reform.
Cermet
How is laying off over 5,000 teachers in any way or manner helping the kids? Rather then address the needs of the kids by finding some way to keep the system up while it is repaired, this asswipe is just saying – give up and get rid of the teachers – yes, that makes sense – NOT. With people like this, what chance do any of these kids have? Schools are about the only place many of these kids have to both learn and have as a place that is safe. Taking that away does what but only proves thugs are cold blooded evil bastards with no morals other than a love for money – christ, if their was even one christian among them, I’d be amazed.
Yet our entire -100% – of our banking system is a ripoff and has zero accountability but underpaid, overworked treachers are these thugs target – asswipes all.
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Christ you are irredeemably insufferable. Not long ago, when you were once again tearing down phantoms in your own mind by stalking EDK, I asked for your solutions to the problems EDK addressed. Your answer, in total: whatever Obama wants. Now that’s some policy proposal! Get some skin in the game, or shitthefuckup.
But enough of that! How’s the coup working out? You know, the one where you use all your powerful internet contacts to get EDK fired for
being something other that you want him to bepure vengeance against your own free-market-loving neocon past?ETA: The thread was already derailed, no?
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: this is just crazy. You link to comments where you say that returning to Clinton era tax rates and defense spending is “Pretend Bush Never Happened” and say that “glibertarians everywhere” are arguing for it.
…which is really, really abysmally stupid. Glibertarians everywhere are arguing for a tax hike? No, no, no. The people arguing for a return to Clinton-era rates are mostly liberals. Liberals like you’d find right here at Balloon Juice. Unless you think John Cole is a glibertarian who wants to pretend the same thing, since it’s basically his plan too.
There are a handful of conservatives like Bruce Bartlett out there who are also arguing for increases in tax rates, but they are hardly glibertarian. So I am confused – if raising taxes is glibertarian, then what is the answer?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Stillwater: i have given it some thought since our last exchange.
Would you like to hear details?
I already told you that was sarc. And anyways I can’t get EDK fired. His bosses at Forbes already know he is soc1alist.
RSR
The superintendent fired in Seattle for fraud is a Broad Academy grad.
Two higher-ups in the Philly SD are also Broad Academy, including one of Queen Arlene’s toadies…
birthmarker
@BGinCHI: When the new regimes come in, the schools will suddenly become the most marvelous, exemplary shining examples of neocon success ever.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: wallah. it isnt about raising tax-rates. It isnt even about returning to clinton tax rates. It is about returning to pre-Bush tax rates.
It is about pretending Bush never happened.
The middle class has ALREADY shrunk, jobs have ALREADY flown offshore, the inequality gap has ALREADY grown, America is ALREADY 25th in math and 20th in science.
There have to be social justice solutions to problems that were CREATED by freemarket policies during the Bush admin.
Freemarket solutions do not work.
Remember how you couldn’t come up with a single example? Other people here were not in on that discussion.
This is the same as your freemarket fantasy forest post. You can’t return to the old-growth forest because the valuable timber has already been made into freemarket tables and chairs.
Just like to get back to A Time Before Bush you have to repair the damage freemarket policies caused.
Southern Beale
Is this the Broad Foundation as in Eli Broad? That guy? L.A.-based bazillionaire? I actually know him. I thought he was always a big time liberal. I knew he was really interested in education as well as modern art but the whole “privatize the public schools” thing surprises me.
Loneoak
ED, please keep up this investigation. I’d be especially interested to hear some perspective on the legality of a government official receiving salary from a private organization that advocates for specific policies and has substantial financial stakes in seeing those policies carried out. Unless the money is routed through the government as a general fund for superintendents I just don’t see how that is legal.
Joel
Robert Bobb seems like a decent enough person.
But as they say, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
BGinCHI
@birthmarker: They will be greeted as liberators.
Linnaeus
@Southern Beale:
I
Yes, it’s the same one.
I might have been surprised in years past that a major Democratic donor like Broad would put his resources behind neoliberal education reform, but when you consider the direction that the Democratic Party’s been going in over the past 30 or so years, it’s not as surprising.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain:
No, like you they are arguing for pretending Bush was an anomaly and so they should get a do over for freemarket/marketbased policies.
Not on my watch.
Loneoak
@Southern Beale:
Big time liberals, when they become gazillionaires, become the type of liberal that favors benevolent top-down, corporate-style control. Their hearts may be in the right place re: equal opportunity for children regardless of race and income, but their heart is not with democratic institutions, their heart is not with teachers and unions, and they do not trust the competency of the poor to govern themselves. The corporatist fantasy leads to the kind of fraud we are seeing in the reform as privatization movement, and it leads to fantasies about Emergency Financial Managers as saviors.
birthmarker
@BGinCHI: Ha!!
Linnaeus
@Cermet:
Just as a clarification, it’s unlikely that all 5,000+ teachers will actually be laid off. It’s in the union’s contract with the district that the district has to notify workers who could be laid off.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
There’s an annoying, persistent buzzing noise in this thread. Can anyone else hear it, or is it just me?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: don’t read me. Bend over because here come the freemarketeers again.
And EDK is holding the vaseline jar for them.
;)
E.D. Kain
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: you are arguing semantics. Pre-Bush vs. Clinton-era — what’s the difference? Your mumblings over freemarkets have no bearing on whether raising taxes is the right solution. In fact, I can find nothing coherent in this entire comment. Yes, social justice is very important.
Part of social justice is raising taxes back to a sustainable level, and cutting defense spending. Sometimes social justice is providing food stamps for the poor, other times it’s making sure there’s a strong economy so that people can get jobs. Nothing is simple and black and white, and good vs. evil.
I’m against corporate reforms in education. What is your dispute with this particular issue? Stay on topic just for once.
Marc
Christ almighty, but this forum needs an “ignore” button.
It’d be nice if we could actually discuss the subject at hand, as opposed to the same hobbyhorses every single time.
E.D. Kain
@Loneoak: it apparently stood up in court, but I can’t see how it’s legal either. The conflict of interest just seems too great. Then again, this sort of thing happens constantly on Wall Street. Enough money will turn eyes blind.
MattR
@E.D. Kain: It must be very annoying to have m_c in rattling around in your brain trying to deduce the deepest meaning of every thought. She has seen into your soul and knows that the only reason that you want to end the Bush era tax cuts is so that the economy will recover enough for you to plunder it.
I award her no points and may God have mercy on her soul.
Martin
@Marc:
I’m sure there is one under Cole’s Terrible Towel.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but has anyone heard about Michelle Obama’s plane in some kind of aborted landing incident?
Ana Gama
Disclaimer: I live in southwest Michigan, but grew up in the Detroit suburbs and am still very attached there.
The DPS has been in decline for 30 years, just like the city. Robert Bobb has a hard problem to solve, and I’m not sure just what the answer is. From what I have heard and read, there was little accountability in the schools, lots of missing money, dwindling supplies, easy access to steal stuff. Couple that with crumbling buildings, declining population and tax base, dysfunction in city government, unemployment in the 40-50% range, rampant drug problems, and it’s not hard to imagine what the schools would be like.
Also, Robert Bobb arriving on the scene was not the first time that the DPS has been taken over. In 1999, the Michigan legislature dismissed the school board due to mismanagement. They returned to a regular school board in 2005, and between then and Bobb being appointed in 2009, hired and fired two superintendents.
It’s a tough problem, with no easy answers. Obviously, revitalization of the city and Michigan in general would go a long way in helping the schools.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@EconWatcher: Over at GOS, there’s an article about this guy where he closed down a school for teen mothers that had a 90% graduation rate. It also says he’s planning on closing a school for the deaf.
freelancer
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Which is it, freak? Is EDK a freemarketeer or a sockalist? Or because your incoherence is showing, are you going to hedge sayin’ its metasarc that only noncudlips can grasp and I have no substrate cause it’s funner to troll when you have no point?
E.D. Kain
@Ana Gama: Absolutely! Detroit schools are a mess, just like Detroit in general. There’s corruption to go around. Like I said earlier, my problem is not that the state wants to intervene, or that accountability measures shouldn’t be put in place. It’s the idea that a single Emergency Manager, with ties to foundations that are deeply involved in spreading charter schools, has so much authority. That won’t necessarily lead to a better or worse scenario – I just don’t think it’s a great approach. Honestly, if it’s really bad – and money is disappearing right and left – maybe the feds need to step in. Or at least a state-level task force of some kind. I worry about one man having that much authority though.
E.D. Kain
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): uhm…wow.
ppcli
Their dream was that some day he might become chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff under President McCain, and one day the call would come down: “Bob Bobb, Bob Bobb, Bomb Iran!”
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@E.D. Kain: /sigh
Words have meaning. like your recent global replace on freemarket with marketbased? Oops. same thing. This is an IMPORTANT difference. Glibertarians and freemarketeers (like you) want to pretend the Bush economy didnt exist. Because it DIDNT WORK.
And the evidence is all around us.
;)
okfine, we will do it this way. Please give some some specific solutions for the shrinkage of the middle class, our global rank in math and science, and the freemarket offshoring of american jobs.
RSR
c’mon people, it’s skimming 101. Why have the tax-payers directly fund anything when there can be committees and studies and foundations and boards and so on.
The Republicans privatized the prison system (and keep it full with the war on drugs) for their corporate benefactors. Now everybody wants a piece of the education pie.
Erik Vanderhoff
@E.D. Kain: But that would put a damper on her whole schtick.
Erik Vanderhoff
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Are you confusing revenues with rates? This comment makes no fucking sense: The Clinton tax rates are the pre-Bush tax rates. Are you arguing for a mechanism to provide for the same amount of revenue? Then talk about that. Christ, use plain English, you tweaker!
Ana Gama
@E.D. Kain: Yes, I understand, and I do agree with all your stated concerns 100%. As a Michigan resident, I resent this Emergency Manager BS.
The biggest problem here, though, is that the state has been in recession since 2001. When the rest of the country was going through the housing boom, we weren’t. There just aren’t resources, although the picture has brightened a bit in the last 18 months.
I think one of the reasons Bobb was chosen was because they felt they needed someone who would bang heads and take names. A tough guy. But, I also agree that he needs to be accountable to the community.
Stillwater
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Please give some some specific solutions for the shrinkage of the middle class
Well, that right there demonstrates that you haven’t read any of the posts you claim to have read! (Or it demonstrates that you’re tilting at windmills…)
Mandramas
You know, there are not so much alternatives. You can a) fire all the teachers and remplace them with new ones, b) create new schools with taxes increased money c) create new schools with deficit-financed money, to be paid in the future.
What is the right choices, in this case? I’m going with C.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@freelancer: Is EDK a freemarketeer or a sockalist?
he is both.
he said so.
E.D. Kain – April 14, 2011 | 11:22 am · Link
__
It is distinct from other economic approaches such as command economies, etc. You can be a socialist state like Sweden and have free markets. Sweden purposefully avoided the command economy model of the USSR with excellent results.
also he told me in mail he would be fine with a swedish system
and the swedes are soc1alists.
;)
Mandramas
@Erik Vanderhoff: Well, in any case, increase regressive taxes in the face of a recession is nutcase.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Quit ruining the name of the best character in the series.
Kind of curious: Do you want the government deciding what type of shoes you can buy?
The thing you seem to keep missing, because it doesn’t fit your narrative, is that EDK is not recommending the market for everything. But there are some things that the market is much better at solving than a lot of regulation. In a properly functioning society, we would be constantly adjusting this boundary between the two. But we’ve stopped being in a properly functioning society.
E.D. Kain
@Stillwater: right? I mean, I’ve been writing about that specific topic like over and over and over again.
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I’m serious, until you can go through what I’ve written and honestly address this issue, you aren’t worth engaging. I’ve tried, I really have, but if you won’t read my posts I can’t help you.
Erik Vanderhoff
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Oh, I get it. You’re the reincarnation of Wittgenstein.
That makes so much more sense now. In so much as Wittgenstein makes sense.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Erik Vanderhoff: no, im sayin EDK and the rest of the glibertarians want a do over. They want to ignore the last eight years of freemarket paolicies under bush.
ratz moderation.
/sigh
arguingwithsignposts
Here is a question that I think should be answered in the midst of all of this hoo-haw: we seem to be able to agree that at one point, public schools in the United States provided an education that made many students into productive, educated members of society – even those who didn’t go to college. What caused that education to slide? It can’t all be the fault of lazy union thug school teachers riding on the public gravy train.
And what makes these randroids think that private charter schools will provide something better? How about we figure out what caused the slide in the first place and address those issues, instead of seeking to create education factories for profit?
And I can’t be the only person who could find a fuck ton of administrators who can share in the blame for public school malfeasance on a grander scale than any teacher who’s spent 30+ years in the classroom.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
It really is amazing how you think everything EDK writes is all about you, stalker.
burnspbesq
@E.D. Kain:
In principle, I like the process. If the system has an excess of teachers, one way to try to retain the best is to make everyone reapply. That said, if the teachers’ collective bargaining agreement permits this, they need new leadership.
Mandramas
@arguingwithsignposts: Maybe it just that American society has being despising knowledge as a value since 1970.
C’mon, a society that believes that buying stock is safe way to get retirement funds can’t have kids with goods scores in maths.
freelancer
NO. no, no no no no. Nyet.
Reading Comprehension, you needz it. The specific point you’ve been begging for is wrt Taxes. Either we can continue with unprecedented lowering of rates of taxes, in which case we’re in unknown territory where American History is concerned, OR we can raise them to higher rates, at which point, they will be compared to rates we’ve had in the past and have been rhetorically linked with whatever administration was in power at the time. Saying reverting to Clinton-era tax rates is specifically addressing the rate of taxes under Clinton. The same expositional device works with Bush, Reagan, Eisenhower, etc.
Listen carefully: Returning to Clinton era tax rates would raise tax rates to where they were between 1993-2000 THAT’s IT, it’s not glib fantasizing about a DeLorean and the Gray’s Sports Almanac do-overs in order to get rich.
Loneoak
@arguingwithsignposts:
And how did we end up with a form of government that SELLS a public school?
Omnes Omnibus
I know that I have been as guilty of this as anyone else, but HG-W/m_c should be ignored. She is not interested in anything but derailing threads towards her hobbyhorses. She does not read more that 20% of what other people write, even if it is written in direct response to her. She cherrypicks out of context phrases that support her preconceived views and then conducts an argument with the strawman she just constructed. As a result, the 15-25% of what she says that is actually worth reading is lost in the static of her obsessions.
Shorter me: Just ignore the troll.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@arguingwithsignposts:
Government cannot do anything right. Heck, they can’t even fail when they’re supposed to.
To answer your first question: The education that my parents got would not work today. On the other hand, I think the education I got (graduated from high school in 1988) would work just fine for my kids, with the programming class updated to something better than Apple IIE basic.
birthmarker
I think Detroit was picked for this little experiment because there are real problems there. Makes it more palatable to sensible people. Then the “success” will be used to pimp privatization to the rest of the nation.
I have a real problem with social ills being outsourced to private industry. Where is the motivation to actually fix the problems? Privatized prisons are the perfect example of this. Also private methadone clinics.
Mandramas
@Erik Vanderhoff: Wittgenstein? Really? The only relation I can see is that you can’t understand any of those.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mandramas: But is that really something that is only applicable post-1970? Any historians want to chime in here?
@Loneoak: That part is also a good question. And, more importantly, how do we get away from that form of gov’t?
Stillwater
@E.D. Kain: She’s crazy. Literally! I mean, as much as anyone commenting here I’ve tried to talk her out of the crazy tree. You have too. Nothing works.
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus:
Mandramas
@Omnes Omnibus: In her defense, when she is not trolling or repeating their concepts, she can sprout very interesting ideas.
And c’mon, trolls are the only way a thread can have some movement. If not, it is a booooring collection of the same “i agree” like speeches.
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: Not a historian, but you can always go back in American history and find examples of anti-intellectualism and periods of time where it is ascendant. I believe Hofstadter wrote something on this. Look at Andrew Jackson vs. JQA.
arguingwithsignposts
@Mandramas:
On this point, I have to disagree. At least wrt education-related matters, there’s a good deal of back-and-forth on substantive issues, more than just “I agree.”
And muttering the same “free market forest” b.s. doesn’t move anything along.
And she’s not trolling EDK – she’s a thread-stalker. There’s a difference.
tkogrumpy
@E.D. Kain: And this comes through crystal clear in your post, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandramas: I noted the 15-25% percent of the time when she is interesting or useful. Her signal to noise ratio is pretty bad. I like weird, I like different, I like the disagreements that happen here when real differences of opinion arise between informed people. All of that happens here quite often. She derails threads until they are about her; hell, I’m guilty of it now.
Mandramas
@arguingwithsignposts: Well, in this thread, if you filter all the comments that basically said “I agree, this is another example of glibertarian /galtian overload” etc, and all the EDK vs HGW, what do you get? A couple of comments about Bentor Harbor and like five more or less “I agree but I’ll add some other information or explanation”. No educated controversies at all.
Southern Beale
@Linnaeus:
He’s one of the founders of my Alma Mater, Pitzer College. A well known liberal enclave, like, breeding ground for Dirty Fucking Hippies.
If anyone wonders how I got the way I am ….
Svensker
Aimai had a comment months ago about how to fix the schools that I thought was really the only thing that would work — and that was basically to take over the community. Jobs for parents, full meals for the kids in school plus heavy duty day care and homework help. I don’t know what Detroit is like but I know some inner city schools in NJ and there the social breakdown is almost complete — 14 year olds having kids and not even the grandparents around anymore to provide any adult care. Those 14 year old single parents don’t much know how to be involved parents by the time their kids are in school. The superintendent of one NJ school district called a meeting of all the parents in his district to talk about what the parents wanted to see happen in the schools — a district with thousands of students. Fewer than 10 parents showed up. Fewer than 10.
You can improve the schools, but until you improve the community, you’re not going to get far.
Mandramas
@Omnes Omnibus: Signal to noise can be bad, maybe- but it is compensated by raw output. There is a bazilion commenters here with a flat line in my interesting-o-meter.
And who cares about signal-to-noise ratio? Internet as a whole is almost pure noise: if you want to survive, you need good reading filter on your mind.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandramas: I guess we will need to agree to disagree on merits of this commenter’s contributions.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@arguingwithsignposts:
No, it didn’t start in 1970. The book Albion’s Seed would be a good place to start for the early history of anti-intellectualism in the US and its connection with other larger and more politically significant cultural blocks.
stormhit
@Joel:
Robert Bobb is a self promoter who doesn’t give a shit about anything other than Robert Bobb. Nothing he’s done in the years he’s been in charge has resulted in what he said would happen. Laying off teachers and fucking them over on pensions hasn’t made one lick of difference. He’s been a total failure- but of course that hasn’t stopped him from collecting huge salary increases and funnelling millions of dollars to various cronies through dubious outside contracting efforts.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I think that book would be great for the book club. I know you have said it before, but it needed saying again.
Stillwater
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, you’re right (or I should say ‘I agree’). In The Paranoid Style Hofstadter presents evidence that anti-intellectualism and conspiracy-theory nonsense (or not!) goes all the way back to the founding era. It’s always been there. It took the Genius of Richard Nixon to make it (arguably) mainstream.
MattR
@Mandramas: Which is cause and which is effect?
BGinCHI
@Svensker: This.
Was groping my way towards this in my post way up thread, but this is the “radical change” needed in a place like Detroit.
Mandramas
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I just picked a date from the thin air; it is more a gradual process, as most of the things in history. i feel that the 70s are the point where the trends have a inflection point.
Omnes Omnibus
@Stillwater: I would argue, and I will admit that some of this argument is purely based on hope, that we are nearing the end of a rightward, anti-intellectual pendulum swing.
Mandramas
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree.
birthmarker
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I looked at this book on Amazon and found this nugget..
I dunno…
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandramas: I think that is a function of recency. If you were witness to some of the prior outbreaks of anti-intellectualism and their aftermaths, you would see them as something special and different. We are living it right now, so it affects us. Aside from that, I would call it typical.
Mandramas
@MattR: Objection noted.
Lets check with the nearest posts not troll-influenced. Open thread, no trolls, but in a sense no really theme to discuss; so… partial credit for you.
The “binary themed one” sounds great too, even with at the end a mistery matoken_chan appeared, so it could derails soon. Even there, a lot of people having fun with binary to ascii converters, zero educated discussion.
Meritocracy at work: Some complains of the USA decadence, a lot of “i agree”, a couple of links to another articles. No frank exchange of opinion.
To be continued…
kay
E.D., this is one you may want to read. It’s an Ohio Supreme Court decision on charter school practice with state funds, and who is responsible for the loss or misuse of state funds.
Can you imagine? They take public funds but want no accountability. Sign me up for that!
xian
please don’t feed the (self-described) troll
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Wow, and in a good way.
Keith G
@arguingwithsignposts:
Unfortunately, a causation flow chart would show our society’s economic decision making to be the prime mover in this reality. By that I mean that the business of the U.S. is, after all, business.
We have allowed our society and the families therein to be fragmented in the service of share holder value. A mere 1,316 hours per year spent in a school is poor remediation to the damage done by the destruction of the social and familial relationships that are the primary “teachers” of young humans.
Create more tests, bust unions, fire teachers and/or give vouchers all they want, they are just putting new paint on rotten wood.
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, but Richard Cordray is gone (AG: he lost in November) and New York State just decided charter schools are not public schools for purposes of prevailing wage.
For-profit schools replacing public or non-profits (private) re: children just scares me to death.
I think turning schools into profit centers is a very, very bad idea. I think I know where that goes, so I’ll just skip this “experiment”, if it’s okay with the “reformers”.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: Cordray is going to DC to work with Elizabeth Warren, right?
dogwood
I don’t know the answer to the problems of urban public education. I know the problems I’ve seen develop over my 35 years as a high school teacher have resulted from attempting to introduce more standards and requirements without lengthening the school day and more importantly the school year. Graduation requirements have increased dramatically in my state, testing takes time, new senior projects eat away at time in required courses, yet the school day has never changed – 8-2:30, 180 days. What has changed is the rhythm of learning and teaching. It is now a frantic race, no time for reflection; students and faculty are exhausted. I’m four weeks from Advanced Placement exams and the stress is palpable, For the last 3 years, schedule changes implemented to accommodate new state requirements means I see these students every other day. It’s not a recipe for success. I don’t know if many teachers would agree with me, but my job would be easier if I worked 20-40 more days per year.
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. He’s really bright. He’s scary-smart. It’s a little daunting in person.
I feel as if I have been donating to him forever, in his various races. He always comes out here to the boonies. Election night sucked because the clearly better qualified lawyer lost. Merit didn’t matter. At all.
He’s inexplicably and dogmatically pro-capitol punishment, but other than that, I’d be happy to have him anywhere in government.
Mandramas
MattR: Objection noted.
Lets check with the nearest posts not troll-influenced. Open thread, no trolls, but in a sense no really theme to discuss; so… partial credit for you.
The “binary themed one” sounds great too, even with at the end a mistery matoken_chan appeared, so it could derails soon. Even there, a lot of people having fun with binary to ascii converters, zero educated discussion.
Meritocracy at work: Some complains of the USA decadence, a lot of “i agree”, a couple of links to another articles. No frank exchange of opinion.
To be continued…@
Omnes Omnibus
@kay: His wife taught me Evidence. I have been to a number of his fundraisers in Columbus over the years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandramas: Not all threads on this blog go anywhere. Some get intellectual. Some are informative. Some are silly. A thread that she is on sooner or later becomes about her.
Keith G
@dogwood: I taught in a similar setting for 23 years. Just increasing instructional time will help some studens, esp AP types. For others, resources put into a lengthened school year may well lead to trade offs with other services that these youngsters need.
It could very well lead to more tests.
arguingwithsignposts
Another byproduct of massive budget cuts, etc. will be the decimation of education in the arts in schools (but don’t cut the football team!) – perhaps not marching band, but orchestra, choir, art, theatre – these types of programs will go away, even though some students blossom in those settings.
But you don’t need theatre for an automaton in the low-wage service job.
kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s great. They get around, those two. I once read a joint editorial they wrote in the WaPo but honestly, I have no memory what it was about.
We loved him in this office because his AG office was really easy for people to work with on small damages/ consumer rip-off claims. We were pushing people who called with questions to file a complaint form online and we were getting really good reports back on how his office dealt with “our” people (and it’s free!).
Frankly, I’d like him back, if it can be arranged.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay: I first read that as Rob Cordray was going to D.C. to work with Elizabeth Warren. Now that would be awesome too.
HyperIon
@RSR wrote:
She wasn’t fired for fraud.
She was terminated without cause.
kay
@arguingwithsignposts:
I had to look him up and I still don’t know who that is. I’m culturally illiterate: pop culture, classical, you name it, I don’t know it. I had a misspent youth :)
This is what that other Cordray is doing:
He’s very prosecutorial and cop-on-the-beat-ish.
arguingwithsignposts
@kay: He was a reporter on The Daily Show a few years back. And I am all for a CFPB enforcement division, and I hope they give him the authority to crack some heads (in the legal system, of course).
MattR
@Mandramas: FYI – Three is the magic number for links that WordPress will allow (including any “reply to”s)
PanurgeATL
@Mandramas:
SCHOOOOOOOOL’S OUT! FOR! SUMMER!
dogwood
@Keith G:
Good point. But I don’t teach just AP students. For me it’s more about having time to explore material and practice skills in a variety of ways. Time to reteach, time to deepen understanding, time enrich the curriculum.
Wolfdaughter
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Sweden seems to have a system that works for them. I wish we would emulate it, modified of course for our situation in the U.S.
Someone else pointed out that ED favors free market where it works (manufacturing and distribution of durable goods and some types of service, and where consumers have time to comparison shop if they choose). ED also realizes that there are situations, such as health care, where the free market doesn’t work well at all.
So calling him a free marketeer in one post and then in another post very soon after, a social!st, shows that you seem incapable of recognizing a balanced viewpoint. If you can’t grasp that, then you really shouldn’t be posting.
And again, it’s not “wallah”, it’s “voila”. I majored in French and when I speak with native speakers, I receive compliments on how well I speak, plus my accent. Heed the old lady, OK?
opie jeanne
@Wolfdaughter: Someone told me that using the word “Wallah!” this way is like saying “Oh God!”
I’m sure she’ll be back to correct both of us.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): @E.D. Kain: give me one example. I feel like diogenes and the lamp.
@E.D. Kain: you said i should read your post. I did. I criticized it.
You are profoundly, deeply dishonest.
I read your posts. I am critiquing YOUR posts.
As I have repeatedly pointed out, the Kain/Kuznicki Pretend 8 Years of Bush Never Happened Plan has a ginormous flaw.
You and Jason are imagining a return to initial conditions that no longer exist.
In the past 10 years America has SPENT A TRILLION DOLLARS on Iraq and A-stan. Do you deny that?
Consider the inequality index.
more empirical data.
education.
You cant just set taxrates back to 2000 levels, and cut military spending back to 2000 levels and expect all these problems to magickally vanish.
Again I ask , How does the Kain/Kuznicki plan address these problems?
Omnes Omnibus
@Wolfdaughter:
@opie jeanne:
As much as I hate to defend the little monster, she isn’t actually mangling French (not that I doubt she would if given half a chance), she is actually using an Arabic expression.
opie jeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks.
Wolfdaughter
@Omnes Omnibus:
I stand corrected, then. Voila would work equally well in the context. I do have to say, though, that I’ve seen other people also type Wallah in the same types of context, and those people, as far as I know, do not know Arabic.
Come to think of it, I wonder if the French got voila from the Arabic, or vice-versa.
opie jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I don’t know how Kain/Kuznicki addresses these problems, but please tell us what your solutions are.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Wolfdaughter: its wallah.
Don’t make Mandramas play the preux chevalier and correct you again.
But EDK has NO solutions except for market-based solutions.
And he cant even give ONE example where market-based policies work.
We have been talking in email.
That is my point. That is why the Kain/Kuzniki plan is a pile of crap.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne: that was not the question now was it? EDK said i hadn’t read him, and I had. And I critiqued his plan. Then he tried to tell me my critique was flawed.
I don’t think it is, but hes not exactly coming roaring back and pointing out where im wrong, is he?
I’ll put up my solutions when Cole gives me a front page post to do it in.
Until then fuck off, and DIAF.
Omnes Omnibus
@Wolfdaughter: I had always thought that voila was a portmanteau of a form of “voir” and “la” as in “see it there” or ” see, there it is.” Pure conjecture on my part. Product of a misspent youth and French classes from seventh grade through college.
opie jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Nice, as always.
The bottom line is that you don’t have a solution and telling me to DIAF is just so perfect.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
where market-based policies have worked IN AMERICA.
of course regulated market-based policies can work IN SWEDEN.
BECAUSE THEY ARE SOC1ALISTS.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne: i have a family of potential solutions that I have been thinking about.
But seeing them comes at a price.
;)
Bob Loblaw
@Omnes Omnibus:
Generally if you want to prove your detached, internet savvy e-cred, “getting out of the boat” and spending six hours arguing the finer points of matoko-speak isn’t the way to do it.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne: however, i am perfectly happy to deconstruct the Kain/Kuznicki Pretend 8 Years of Bush Never Happened Plan for free.
;)
Bob Loblaw
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
What is up with these fucking commenters thinking they’re even slightly qualified, let alone desired, to be a bigger part of this site than remaining some random anonymous dipshit no one cares about. You’re a wackjob spammer with delusions of grandeur. Take your ritalin and get back in the toll booth.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob Loblaw: As a general rule, you are probably correct about that. My theory about the origin of the word voila, however, has nothing to do with m_c. Further, no one is perfect; even I do silly things once in a while.
arguingwithsignposts
Wow, look – she did it *again*.
Stillwater
@Bob Loblaw:
Fixt.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Bob Loblaw: i have no delusions. I dont want a permanent FP slot.
But im not wasting time putting my theories here.
like I said, im purrfectly happy shredding EDKs “market-based” posts, and I faithfully promise to shred any posts by other free market evangelists that Cole puts on the front page.
at least until the next banning.
kk?
opie jeanne
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
I was not defending Kain et al, I was asking what I thought was a polite question.
You got nothing, which is why you told me to DIAF. With you that’s just SOP.
opie jeanne
@arguingwithsignposts: She has an enormous ego which she demands we feed. I loved the comment she made at the end of one of her earlier posts: “”not on my watch.
Breathtaking.
She’s also a Last Worder.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley:
Objection – facts not in evidence. you have shred *nothing* – evah, cudlip. You have posted word salad stalkerisms from your word salad bag that seems to be more copypasta than thought. That doesn’t deserve an OP, much less the energy that we expend. You’re wrong about religion, you’re wrong about history, you’re wrong about markets, WTF are you right about, m_c?
arguingwithsignposts
@opie jeanne: True dat. She’ll stalk three-day old posts to do so.
opie jeanne
@arguingwithsignposts: I’ve seen that.
I’m watching a great baseball game right now, Angels vs. Rangers. I think I’ll focus on that rather than She Who Must Be Ignored.
(OMC! It’s now 13 – 1!!)
Lyrebird
@BGinCHI: @Svensker:
Didn’t get to read Aimai’s post, but I do recommend reading up on Bill Strickland. Hasn’t gotten all the way to what you’re saying, but close, & he sees his efforts as complementary to what the existing schools already do.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@opie jeanne: lawl. i got plenty.
but why should i put it in a comment?
@arguingwithsignposts: i am right about all those things.
you should use diax’s rake moar.
dogwood
As an educator, I appreciate EDK’s post, and I enjoyed many of the thoughtful comments. It would have been nice to see a serious discussion ensue. But alas, as is ever the case, the thread gets hijacked by matoko and it becomes a joke. I mean whatever happened to BoB? It’s Cole’s blog and he is not going to ban this woman, but it’s obvious than any post by EDK will be ruined as long as she’s around. Please don’t respond anymore to this strange woman. She’ll go away on her own when she stops getting attention. And that includes you Mr. Kain.
arguingwithsignposts
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: You should use *facts* more – stalker.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@arguingwithsignposts: facts
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@dogwood: dude. Cole bans me alla time. EDK is just another glibertarian freemarketeer.
Deal.
And you do understand that he is just here to link-whore, right?
Over at Forbes I have a post up
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@dogwood: and here’s a thought.
go comment at Forbes.
after all, that is where freemarket bullshytt-talkers belong.
;)
Morgan
There was an article in Dissent magazine about more or less just this topic: http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@Morgan: yes, excellent article.
And what kind of solutions do the oligarchs use to farm poor American children for dollars?
Free market solutions. Market-based solutions.
And it won’t stop, because americans can’t conceive of anything else.
lou
To get back to the actual subject at hand: interesting background about Bobb. He was elected president of the DC school board about the time Adriane Fenty was successfully pushing for mayoral control. Fenty got his wish, appointed Michelle Rhee, the school board became a toothless tiger, and Bobb left. Given his opposition to mayoral control in DC, all this is ironic, no?
Hermione Granger-Weasley
@lou:
not really. Race to the Top is a marketbased solution, just like NCLB.
Barry
@Morgan: Thanks, Morgan – I was going to post that article.
One thing that I realized after Michelle ‘Superman’ Rhee turned out to have lied about her record is that the Gates Foundation must have been in on the lie. You don’t hire somebody to run a school, let alone a large system, without a background check.